Friday, 22 June 2007

Fruit, Fruit and More Fruit

One of the bonuses of working in factory that means you have to experiment with different ingredients and recipes is that we often have a lot of excess fruit left over from the weekly trials when it comes to Friday. We clear out the ridges and divide any produce that won’t last the weekend between us. Last weekend I came home with two punnets of strawberries, a whole peeled pineapple, two mangoes and four fruit salads. Yummy yummy.

Another advantage is that we sometimes get companies sending us free samples of their produce or products in the hope of getting business with us. Last week we had a huge box of assorted dried fruit delivered to us. We don’t use dried fruit in our products all that often and so we didn’t have a need to keep the fruit. Instead we all had a little taster of it and then divided it up between us.

My haul included dried mango, strawberries, blueberries, pineapple and banana slices. I also ended up with the dried figs and prunes as my two other colleagues said they didn’t like these. I think they’re mad – but all the better for me. I have never seen dried strawberries before. They are still quite squishy and I don’t really know what to do with them. I’m sure they would be nice just to eat as they are, but I was wandering if there was anything I could cook/bake with them. If anyone has any ideas I’m open to suggestions. I plan use the blueberries in cookies and add the some of the others to my cereal. The pineapple is lovely the chewy with a great flavour and I think the banana slices would be great in muffins.

I bet there will come a day when I will be sick to death of fruit but, but I’m not there yet. Hope there is some nice fruit for the taking this weekend.

3 comments:

Dried strawberries are great and can be used in the same way that blueberries can be used (added to cereal, muffins, biscuits, dipped in chocolate, etc). You could also use them for making jam by boiling them up with some sugar, lemon juice and water. If you soak them in some water, for a few hours or overnight, then they should regain a lot of what they lost, and plump up some.Or you could just use them as a snack to nibble on when you want to nibble.I dried some strawberries today and they disappeared quite quickly. The kids were disappointed to find out there were none left.

Thanks very much the the ideas. I have decided to go with the scone idea (and munch the leftovers) as I think they will make a great summery change to raisins. My grandmother is coming for a visit next weekend so I'll probably make them then. Served with some whipped cream they will make a great afternoon tea and also be perfect for the start of Wimbledon. Thanks to you both for the suggestions.